It’s achieved through freedom. By giving people the opportunity to work hard and take risks. And letting the market determine prices and the allocation of resources.

That’s supposed to be what capitalism is. In fact, that was the last entry on the T-shirt:

Capitalism: You have two cows. Sell one and buy a bull.

Sadly this is no longer the case.

Certainly the West is in much better shape than Venezuela. But the vast regulatory apparatus being built in the so-called ‘free world’ is simply appalling.

Here in the Land of the Free, the federal government alone issues or proposes over 80,000 pages per year of new laws, rules, and regulations.

This means that, right now as you read these words, you are likely in violation of a dozen different regulations that you’ve never heard of, each of which can carry severe criminal, civil, financial, and administrative penalties.

Children get chased away from running lemonade stands. Teenagers get turned in to Homeland Security for going door-to-door offering to shovel their neighbors’ snow.

Businesses must suffer a constant onslaught of new regulations, licenses, permits, and taxes.

Meanwhile the government continues to expand its debts at an astonishing rate, saddling future generations with the obligation to pay a bill they never signed up for.

And the entire financial system is manipulated by an unelected committee of central bankers who fix the price of money (i.e. interest rates) as foolishly as the Venezuelan government fixes beef prices.

This is not the path to prosperity either. In fact, if I were to update the T-shirt for today, I would include these entries:

US government: You have 330 million cows. You milk them down to the last drop, tell them that they’re the freest cows in the world, then train them to be afraid of men in caves.

Federal Reserve: You have two cows. You give them to the banks for free. The banks slaughter them and eat all the meat. You conjure money out of thin air and buy them two more cows.

Wall Street: You don’t actually have any cows. But you rake in billions from selling out your own customers and illegally manipulating the price of milk. The government gives you a slap on the wrist.

Silicon Valley: You have two cows. They don’t produce any milk, and your operation loses $500 million per year. Top VC firms invest in your cows, valuing your company at $25 billion.

US small business: You have two cows. You cannot sell the milk without a permit. You cannot drink the raw milk that comes from your own cows. The government fines you $10,000 for failing to file form BS-01519.

US big business: You have two cows. You hire the former head of the FDA to be your corporate ‘advisor’. You get a huge government contract. Now you have two million cows.

How about you– any ideas?

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How short the list one could compile of those of whom it can be said that fame and money did not deprave?

At Washington, capital city of the terminally self-absorbed, mortal man holds to fleeting, feeble and fallible opinion, God immutable fact.

~~

It is my assessment that America is dying inside, being eaten away by the horror of the collapse of the middle orders, the attendant societal and religious values and customs of those orders and the ubiquity of war making for dubious purpose.

~~

The rich man ought not be taxed at all~~he ought be compelled to employ and train the poor man~~directly~~personally.

~~

The principal need in America today is~~financial and industrial De-Globalization~~to facilitate the promotion of the possibility for the average man to get and keep a good job with good benefits paid by the employer~~as was done not very long ago.~~

~~Bene Nati, Bene Vestiti, Et Mediocriter Docti~~

~

~~La crema y nata~~

~

~~Artista de la conquista

~~

In sunshine and in shadow~~I hold tight to the Republican view of time and money~~I write night and day~~yet~~while impecunious~~I am vastly overpaid~~in that taking pay to do what I love is unfair~~to my employer~~in a fair system~~under such circumstances~~I should pay him~~not he me~~I am far, far too old a man to be sexually confused~~praise Jesus~~but I am yet young enough to be politically confused~~is anyone not~~in an absolute sense~~I am a Catholic Royalist~~in a practical sense~~I am a Classical Liberal~~a Gaullist~~a Bonapartist~~an American Nationalist Republican~~in either sense~~my head is soon for the chopping block~~to hasten my interlude with Madame La Guillotine~~I write without fear~and without favor of~any man.

~~

Finis Origine Pendet…

The escape commences…

~~

September, 1957

~~

Saint Jane Frances de Chantal Catholic parochial school, called, by anyone of any background, simply: “Chan~al,” a place where, of an autumn day in 1957, school, for me, began and ended in the first convening of the first grade in which a tiny nun, one Sister Dom Bosco, appeared before me, just behind the window appearing at far left of this photograph, and piped out this: “I may be small, but so then, is the Atom Bomb.”

~~

My determination to escape school commenced immediately on hearing about this Atom Bomb business and took 16 dicey and arduous years to finally accomplish.~~

“Jean-Marie Le Pen is a friend. He is dangerous for the political set because he’s the only one who’s sincere. He says out loud what many people think deep down, and what the politicians refrain from saying because they are either too demagogic or too chicken. Le Pen, with all his faults and qualities, is probably the only one who thinks about the interests of France before his own.”~~